1) Offsets are not the only problem in the sale of American Patriot missiles to Turkey nordicmonitor.com/2019/01/off-se… 
2) The major stumbling block between Turkey and the US on the finalization of the sale of $3.5 billion worth of Patriot missiles, whose purchase awaits approval by the US Congress, has always been the issue of offsets. But that is not the only problem in the proposed sale.
3) Judging from the wording in the notification @StateDept sent to Congress on Dec. 18, 2018, this issue remains undecided. “The purchaser requested offsets. At this time offset agreements are undetermined and will be defined in negotiations between the purchaser and contractors"
4) Andrea Thompson, under secretary of state for arms control and international security, told @BobCorker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “The prime contractors will be Raytheon Corporation in Andover, Massachusetts, and Lockheed-Martin in Dallas, Texas,”
5) The issue of offsets, or co-production, was certainly nothing new as Turkey and the US have failed to come up with an agreement on the terms for nearly a decade. The only new element in the divergence is that Turkey's insistence on the purchase of S-400 missiles from Russia.
6) If Ankara proceeds with the sale and transfer of the S-400 missile batteries from Russia, that would set off a range of sanctions from the United States that might cripple Turkish defense companies including state-owned firms.
7) We saw the same game played out before when the government of #Erdogan signed an agreement with China to purchase the FD-2000 long-range air and missile defense system manufactured by China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CPMIEC), under sanctions by the US
8) Many US officials came to Ankara to explain the negative consequences of going through with this sale,& Erdoğan had to cancel the contract in 2015. In a major snub to the Chinese, the cancellation announced during the G-20 in Turkey where China’s president was the guest.
9) Perhaps the same fate awaits the Russian S-400 purchase agreement even though Turkish officials have repeatedly said the deal is already done and the down payment has been made to the Russians.
10) Although the Erdoğan government has become quite unpredictable in foreign relations in the last couple of years and has damaged Turkey’s traditional alliance ties, Erdoğan will likley buckle in the end and drop the Russian deal.
11) Unless, of course, Erdogan keeps this very expensive Russian defense toy just to keep his lavish palace safe in the capital as a stand-alone protection unit, as is rumored in Ankara circles, then both deals would possibly proceed.
12) Over the years the US position and the terms offered by US contractors to Turkey have fundamentally changed from what was put on the table years ago.
13) US officials told Turkey back then China’s generous offer in pricing, co-production of missiles by Turkish firms & technology transfer could not be met by the US contractors since they are private companies bidding against heavily subsidized Chinese state companies.
14) The fact remains that Erdoğan’s criticism that some NATO member countries also have Russian weapons, hinting that former Warsaw Pact countries that later became NATO members inherited stockpiles of Soviet (now Russian) weaponry, is false.
15) “There is no single example of those stockpiles being integrated to the Alliance integrated defense system capabilities,” the @DeptofDefense official who visited Turkey was telling Turkish reporters.
16) The interoperability of Chinese or Russian systems with @NATO’s integrated defense capabilities as well as concerns of cyber security and data protection of NATO systems are major challenges if Turkey decides to go ahead with the Russian option.
17) The proposed sale of the Patriot systems to Turkey includes four AN/MPQ-65 Radar Sets, four AN/MSQ-132 Engagement Control Stations, 10 Antenna Mast Groups, 20 M903 Launching Stations, 80 Patriot MIM-104E Guidance Enhanced Missiles (GEM-T) with canisters...
18) ... 60 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) Missiles & five Electrical Power Plants (EPP) III.The offer also includes communications equipment, tools and test equipment, range and test programs, support equipment, prime movers, generators...
19) ...publications and technical documentation, training equipment and spare and repair parts. It would also require personnel training and technical, engineering, and logistics support services, field office support and other elements of logistics.
20) There are other issues with the Patriot sale that were not there several years ago. In a policy justification letter, the US administration told Congress that “Turkey is a member of and critical enabling platform for the Defeat-ISIS campaign and...
21) ...continues to be an essential element of our National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy efforts to compete against great powers in both Europe and the Middle East.
22) The TPY-2 radar site that Turkey hosts is important to the European Phased Adaptive Approach and to efforts to protect Allies and partners against growing Iranian ballistic missile threats.”
23) Firstly, Turkey has not been a real partner in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and in fact has been an enabler and facilitator of ISIL and other jihadist fighters in the region.
24) Incirlik Air Base in Adana, where the US-led NATO allies conduct the campaign against ISIL, has come under intense pressure from the Turkish government with criminal investigations launched into some current and former members of the US military.
25) Secondly, Turkey’s pivoting to Russia and Erdoğan’s open declaration of joint efforts with Tehran to defeat US sanctions on Iran show the current government of Turkey is not a real partner in promoting the security interests of its allies.
26) Another current problem that many allies see in the Erdoğan government is the weakened trust in the protection of confidential information passed on Turkey. The Turkish army is also staffed with anti-NATO generals as most of pro-Western officers including 150 generals purged
27) the Turkish Intelligence Organization (MIT) is led by pro-Iranian Islamist figure Hakan Fidan, and the police department, the main law enforcement agency in Turkey, has been crippled, with nearly the entire leadership of veteran chiefs purged from the force.
28) Under these circumstances, it is difficult to understand how the US government concluded that “[a] determination has been made that Turkey can provide substantially the same degree of protection for the sensitive technology being released as the U.S. Government
29) A case in point is a 2011 espionage case in Turkey where an espionage network harvested classified NATO & US documents, sensitive technology using honey-traps, money offers and other means. The investigators who uncovered this were punished, the case was hushed up by #Erdogan
30) We know from the US government declaration that the Patriot Air Defense System contains classified “CONFIDENTIAL” hardware components, “SECRET” tactical software and “CRITICAL/SENSITIVE” technology.
31) They may be at risk under the current regime in Turkey, whose leadership boosts the perception that it is rapidly becoming a strongly hostile nation. That is what the narrative as well policy actions to some extent from Turkish leadership tell us loud and clear.
